Can we have a Ukraine/ Russia/ Crimea thread for dummies?

[chicaguapa]

In other words, could someone explain the situation in really simple terms please. I don't understand it but feel it's important and I should know what's going on.

And because DD(12) asked me this morning and I couldn't answer.

It's a shame Putin has brought the Cold War back by invading and intimidating his neighbours. For the people of Eastern and Central Europe, WW2 didn't end until 1990, when the post-1945 occupation ended.

I remember how delighted most Europeans were when the Berlin Wall was opened. We thought then that we had seen an end to the Cold War. Sadly it seems we were wrong.

Who "we"?
The cold war continued in earnest via Brzezinski doctrine.

your repeated references to the ideas of an old man far from Europe don't strike much of a chord here.

However we used to think that we were entering an age of integration and co-operation. Those hopes have now been dashed by Putin's invasion and occupation of Russia's neighbours. Perhaps Europe will have another chance in another 25 years.

An interesting Swedish commentary on the way Ukraine embraces and doesn't embrace its past and the reasons why. The author's observation that Ukrainians cannot conceive of victims of the twentieth century within Ukraine apart from ethnic Ukrainians and that they see themselves as getting it coming and going is central.

You would think that any nation with such a keen sense of grievance would be wary of casting their lot with anyone who had run roughshod over its soil, but of course (as the article suggests) the basic political predisposition of the party in power seems to dictate the direction Ukraine turns. No Ukrainian political party seems capable of encouraging real independence by ensuring that the economy doesn't get run into the ground.

Rabid focus on independence isn't backed up by practical measures aimed at securing an independent future. Hence going cap in hand for loans that will effectively sign over the country to hedge fund managers and the warm bosom of the IMF while presenting this as an anti-Russian (and by implication in Ukraine 'Soviet') heroic gesture, and refusal to consider a federal arrangement. That would contradict the national myth of All-Ukrainian victimhood to a degree that would be too hard to bear.

Shallishanti, For a group so focused on the integrity of Ukraine and opposed to foreign interference it seems to have a good few 'international' partners. It is not simply a message from some Ukrainian people.

Diaspora
Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organisations
Children of Chornobyl Canadian Fund
League of Ukrainian Canadians
Ukrainian Canadian Congress
Ukrainian Institute of America
Ukrainian World Congress

Partners
Common Cause (USA)
Independent Media Trade Union of Ukraine
Institute for Public Policy (Romania)
Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group (Ukraine)
Non-Governmental Centre on Access to Information (Poland)

Ukrainian diaspora groups in North America tend to overwhelmingly represent western Ukraine, which is where the majority of Ukrainian immigrants to the US originated.

what's the point you're making, math?

Are you suggesting that Russia should invade Ukraine and its other neighbours? Or are you just suggesting the Ukrainians should shut up and stop moaning about it?

Is that a cry for help, PigletJohn?
Did I use too many long or unfamiliar words?

What section of Ukrainian people can write articles in English and know their ways around western social media?

I was always curious , why does the Russian man protesting in Moscow hold a banner in English? www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26531310

It is a request for clarification. I can see you have pasted in lots of words, but I can't see that they make a point. Is there one?

BTW you are silly to insult me by suggesting that I am not fluent in English, or that I have a limited vocabulary. It makes a change from you insulting me by suggesting I am "incredibly thick"

You can't see that I have pasted in lots of words because I didn't paste in lots of words.

And of course there is a point.

There were lots of placards in Kiev in English too, several proposals. And at least one wedding. It was all very starry eyed.

I wonder what it is.

to respond to you, mathanxiety, I don't claim any expertise or insight into the Ukraine situation I simply passed on the link at the request of my friend and her family (who incidentally are German not English) - I respect and trust her motivation. As to why so they are communicating in English I guess that's a good language with which to communicate with the rest of the world. I don't see why we should be surprised they can use social media.

I am not surprised to see expertise in social media either but I suspect this is not a group of Ukrainians expressing themselves but a group of PR people from the various groups listed in the right hand column creating a website and waiting for hits.

I'm equally suspicious when I see people peddling Kremlin propaganda and refusing to acknowledge any Russian wrongdoing, while heaping criticism at wrongdoing by others, some of it 75 years ago.

I think I've worked out you "point" now Math.

You were hoping to discredit the pro-Ukrainian website.

Piglet, labeling any opinion that goes against your views as Kremlin propaganda is more akin to Stalin's 'enemy of the people' labeling, than to a civilised debate in a genuinely free society that respects freedom of speech. Why are you see obsessed with Kremlin?

You say "we", "here", who are "we" and "where" is that?

As you can see (or perhaps not) from my 18:38:00 post, PigletJohn, there is never any such thing as a pro-Ukrainian pov. It is always anti-something else because what Ukraine is and who Ukrainians are is a matter of controversy in Ukraine. As an example of the fracture in society, some western Ukrainians think Russian speaking Ukrainians should be nuked.

It will be most interesting to see if the 9th May is celebrated this year.

"there is never any such thing as a pro-Ukrainian pov"

that's interesting, math.

So you think people who live in Ukraine, and express the view that they would prefer not to be invaded and occupied by a foreign army, are expressing an anti-someone-else pov.

Maybe you are right on that one, especially if they currently see themselves at risk of being invaded and occupied. Whatever could have caused that, I wonder?

interesting to see how the 9th May is celebrated this year.

By marches honouring Nazi SS Galicia division and Bandera Nazi collaborators?
Like in

By the way the above BBC report is dated 4 January, long before the February Maindan events and Crimea.

"some western Ukrainians think Russian speaking Ukrainians should be nuked."

that's interesting, math.

And some Russian leaders, having invaded and occupied parts of Georgia, thought that Georgia's democratically elected President should be hanged by his balls.

There are some bad-tempered people about, aren't there?

Maybe that was because of stuff like this?

'In September, 2012, during Saakashvili's presidency, a video taken inside Tbilisi prison Gldani #8 showing prisoners being beaten and sodomized was released to the public. Georgian Minister of Correction, Probation and Legal Assistance Khatuna Kalmakhelidze was forced to resign over the scandal. Human rights organizations including the U.N. Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a statement expressing outrage over the video.'

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikheil_Saakashvili#cite_note-40

His presidency was marked by human rights and civil rights abuses, corruption, instability, economic problems, lack of democratisation...

You will note that Georgia's former president no longer lives in Georgia. Maybe he is smarter than he appeared to be throughout his presidency.

Of course what happens in Georgia isn't exactly pertinent to the question of Ukraine and its future. The significance of mentioning Tymoshenko's remark is that she is running for the presidency of Ukraine.

The significance of using in Russian propaganda Tymoshenko's bugged and manipulated phone call is that she is running for the presidency of Ukraine.

since Putin's bloodthirsty thread was issued several years before the prison scandal, it is not likely that there was any connection. Instead it was a violent rage that a smaller neighbouring country should attempt to resist Russian invasion and occupation under Putin's command.

"In August 2008, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili attempted to restore control over the breakaway South Ossetia. However, the Georgian military was soon defeated in the resulting 2008 South Ossetia War after regular Russian forces entered South Ossetia and then Georgia proper, and also opened a second front in the other Georgian breakaway province of Abkhazia together with Abkhazian forces.[220][221] During this conflict, according to high level French diplomat Jean-David Levitte, Putin intended to depose the Georgian President and declared: "I am going to hang Saakashvili by the balls".[222]"